Author: Jeffrey Hayzlett

“There she is, Miss America.“ 

We’ve all heard the song and watched the pageant, but how much do we know about Miss America? I’m not talking about the young woman with the sash and the crown. The Miss America Organization is more than a beauty contest (in fact, I learned during this episode beauty isn’t even part of the competition). It empowers women through college scholarships.  

I know you’re not supposed to ask a lady her age, but next year Miss America will celebrate a key milestone — turning 100. While it’s aged gracefully, Miss America is a long way from its roots as an Atlantic City, NJ swimsuit contest whose original goal was to bring more people to the city’s famed boardwalk for Labor Day Weekend.  

Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting Shantel Krebs, the Chairwoman and interim CEO of the Miss America Organization on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett. Not only is she running the organization, but she was also a contestant. 

“1997, I was Miss South Dakota, and that really shaped who I am today,” Shantel said. “For me, it was a launching pad. It not only was the launching pad for my scholarships that I applied to go to college. I was the first one in my family to attend college and essentially was paid for by Miss America.” 

“We always compare Miss America to the Super Bowl. Is it more likely your daughter compete in Miss America versus your son competing in the Super Bowl? It’s a really difficult process to get on that stage, but the benefits in the process of getting there are so worth it of the lady that you become.” 

While most of us think of Miss America as a national television event, the work making that show possible involves many from across the country. It’s all made possible by volunteers from the state-level all the way up to the boardroom.  

“The whole organization is made up of volunteers, boots on the ground that have these organizations established in local communities. That have local titleholders crowned, and then they go on to the state competition and volunteers really run the state organizations,” Shantel said. “So, when you look at the impact that we have for those 99 years. It’s an organization that’s been run solely by volunteers. You can’t compare that to another nonprofit.” 

Those volunteers and contestants put in countless hours at local, regional, and state competitions. Shantel says even the women who don’t win gain valuable experience you can’t get anywhere else. 

“If you see somebody who’s competed in Miss America on their resume, you need to jump on them. These are the overachievers. The ladies really have it all together,” Shantel said. “At the same time (the contestants) have heart and soul. They’re authentic.” 

“We don’t want to put her on a pedestal and say this is what she is and what everybody thinks she is. She’s the girl next door.” 

She’s also heavily involved in her community. 

“When you talk about how do we make a difference? It is not just with the lives of the scholarships that these young ladies are winning, but it’s in their community. So many of them volunteer or have a particular social initiative that they are advocating for, and they are making a difference in their local community or their state.” 

Miss America is not without controversy. Many believe that it’s a pageant that sexualizes women, exploiting a contestant’s beauty instead of their brains. Shantel says it’s a stigma the organization works hard to rebel against. 

“It’s frustrating,” Shantel said. “Yes, we have a national (TV) network broadcast, but it’s the day-to-day, 365 days a year that we actually are working out there. The social impact initiatives, these causes (the contestants) are supporting, that they’re advocating for in their local communities.” 

She added, “We don’t say you have to be invested in a brand-new dress. We don’t judge in one area of our competition on physical beauty. I know it’s hard to believe.” 

It’s also hard to believe that there isn’t a swimsuit competition, either. Miss America did away with that in 2018.  

“The organization was founded in 1921 on the boardwalk in Atlantic City to extend the vacation season,” Shantel said. “So, they thought, ‘let’s have them parade around in bathing suits.’ Which was very disruptive back then (a swimsuit competition) was something you didn’t do.” 

“What we want to make sure people understand the Miss America candidates is that it’s not about the personal and the beauty physical component of it, we’re judging these ladies on the impacts they’ve made, their education and career and where they want to go with it.” 

Shantel says you should think of Miss America as a job interview that the world can see because becoming Miss America is a full-time job for the winner. It isn’t just a crown, a sash, and a bouquet of roses.  

“What happens if she wins the crown and the title, she gets up before the press and asked what her goals and objectives (are) and what she wants to accomplish. What’s her business plan? So, right off the bat, she’s answering tough questions,” Shantel said. “The next morning, we send her off to the major networks in New York, or wherever it may be, put her on camera the next morning on the major morning shows. From there, she goes right on the road speaking. In a non-pandemic year, she’s traveling every 48 to 72 hours in a new location. Miss America is a 365-day job. She’s totally making a difference.” 

She continued, “Beyond that, not just focusing on Miss America, but all those 50 other state titleholders. They go back to their communities and are continuing to advocate for the cause and make a difference in their states.” 

While the pandemic did slow Miss America down in 2020, the pageant plans to come roaring back in 2021, just in time to celebrate its 100^th Birthday. 

This discussion was eye-opening and opened up my understanding of the Miss America Organization and what these young women do year-round. We all could learn a lesson from these future leaders.  

There’s a lot more to our conversation, including talk about sponsorship and branding. Click here to hear the rest of our chat. 

In life and business, we’re all impatient to a degree.  We want to see our hard work pay off right away. Who wants to wait?

But if you had to wait, what’s reasonable? A few hours? A few months? A few years?

How much patience do you have?

I got to thinking about waiting for success after my recent conversation with Lauren Ackerman, co-founder of Ackerman Family Vineyards in Napa Valley, CA. We hosted Lauren During a C-Suite Network Digital Discussion: Unleashing Creativity, Innovation & Patience as Catalysts for Growth in September.

While Ackerman Wines is one of the highest quality boutique wines in Napa Valley, it wasn’t always that way. Lauren told me that when she bought the vineyard in 1994, they didn’t bring their first commercial vintage to market until 2007.

“We started making wine in 1995, but just by experimenting with it,” Lauren remembers. “We wanted to see what the property would produce. So, we just made a couple of barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon every year, about 50 cases or so, and did that for nine years. Checking on the quality, making sure it was what we liked. We made some changes based on the input we received from people we gave the wine to. We didn’t even sell it back in those days. We literally gave it away and said, ‘What do you think?'”

Making wine was a giant leap for Lauren. She had been working in the San Francisco Bay area in technology and as a business consultant. While she didn’t know winemaking, she understood business and learned the rest as she went along.

“I was able to look at the wine industry with a different set of eyes and ask some of those questions, ‘Why can’t you?’ ‘What about this?'” Lauren recalled. “You could definitely make some changes in how you approach things and others you had to go by what was actually realistic for farming and harvesting grapes. I think for me, it was about patience.”

After experimenting and giving the wine away, Ackerman Wines set out to go to market. Their first offering was a 2003 vintage that went public in 2007.

“I remember the concept of going to my very first wine tasting, which was in Orange County (CA). It’s sort of like putting your first artwork or your first child on display and wondering if people are going to enjoy it, or like it, or respond positively to it,” Lauren said. “When they do, it’s this amazing satisfaction like, ‘Okay, we can do this. This is on the right path.'”

Building a brand is tough, and the wine business is no exception. According to Lauren, there are 20,000 brands in the wine industry. Just like the process of making wine, getting your name out there can take time. She says she relies on her consultant roots — looking at where she wants the brand to be in 5 years and ten years or, as she likes to call it, the short game and long game.

“There are things that change along the way, but you always have to keep your eye on what the long game is and make adjustments in your short game to get there,” Lauren said.

Wine can be a fickle business because everyone has a different pallet. While Ackerman Wines try to appeal to everyone, Lauren knows she’s not running a popularity contest.

“Certainly, our style of wine, coming from this cooler part of Napa, which is less fruit-forward and if you know your wine terms, a little more mineralogy, deeper berries. That’s a different style and taste all together than what people might see from St. Helena, Calistoga, or other parts of the Napa Valley,” Lauren said. “I don’t take personal offense. There’s a lot of other styles out there that you can try. We all wear different styles of clothing or fashion. Wine is also that kind of commodity.”

Wine is also something that takes time or, as I alluded to earlier, patience. The process is very intricate and doesn’t happen overnight.

“It’s always an interesting process. It’s like creating a new artwork,” Lauren said. “It’s creating a painting, and you’ve got the various tools to create that painting. The winemaker does too with yeast or with barrels or harvest and fermentation time. I tell people if you think of an artist with 100 colors on their palate, we have those colors in the ability to create something different whenever we want to and create the best that we possibly can.”

Like all businesses, COVID-19 has forced the Ackerman Family Vineyards to places it’s never been before. The wine business is seeing a lot of adversity, and Ackerman isn’t immune.

“It’s definitely been a challenge,” Lauren said. “Shutting down restaurants affects us too because restaurants tend to buy our wines, and they are not selling either. Dealing with that and being innovative, and how do you address it? We do virtual wine tastings, and we do virtual events to introduce our brand to various people around the country.”

Besides the pandemic, all California wineries have another unknown to deal with — wildfire. While the fires have left most of Napa Valley intact, the smoke in the air could ruin this year’s crops.

“I’m not alone in this. Many wineries are wondering and waiting because the harvest is looming whether or not we will be able to harvest our grapes and make wine, whether or not there’s going to be a smoke taint issue,” Lauren said.

“What we don’t know yet in Napa is to what extent all of the 700 or so wineries…are going to be truly affected by (the smoke) and how many of us will have to make the very difficult decision to drop fruit and not make wine at all,” Lauren said. “Laboratories that we depend on to give us a sense of where we are, are backed up. We’re waiting, and harvest is impending. It’s an interesting time to make both a financial decision and making the decision to make a wine that may or may not in three to four years’ time, when you put in on the market have an Issue with that smoke taint flavor nobody really likes.”

With so much up in the air for the 2020 vintage, Lauren knows Ackerman wine isn’t alone in this process. Even with all the competition, she considers her fellow Napa Valley winemakers’ family.

“I think that’s something people haven’t really understood about Napa,” Lauren said. We’re all competitors at one level, but we all work very well together to make sure coming out of Napa Valley, we can produce the best Napa Valley can produce.”

Well said. Whether you want to call it your community or tribe, we are all stronger together.

I really enjoyed my time with Lauren, and I really enjoy Ackerman Family Vineyard’s wine.

If you’d like to hear more of my conversation with Lauren and the Q&A session she did with our C-Suite Network community, click here.

The election cycle in the United States is unlike anywhere else in the world. We have the longest cycle – a total of 1,194 days by the time tomorrow rolls around. Unlike many other developed countries, there are no laws limiting the length of a campaign or how much money can be spent.

Whether you’re tired of the political climate, election results have a direct correlation to Wall Street and eventually Main Street. We may not pay attention to politics, but politics certainly affects all of us on a daily basis. Wall Street will be OK regardless of who wins, but many outside the famed street face more dire consequences with loss of jobs, businesses, and even housing.

I recently sat down at a C-Suite Network event with Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO & Chief Strategist at Quill Intelligence, for a candid conversation about the effects of the election’s outcome, the ramifications for Main Street, and what trends to look out for that can predict the country’s economic future.

I started by asking her how would Wall Street react to a Biden, or Trump, victory and she stated that if the Senate flips (for the Democrats), there will be a capital gains tax increase. Should Joe Biden win, his proposed tax plan includes raising long-term capital gains tax rates and taxes on dividends to 39.6 percent, according to an article on Financial Advisor. Danielle added that investors are looking at their gains in Q4 because their capital gains taxes will be lower during the remainder of 2020.

We all know that Wall Street will recover, but what happens to Main Street?

Danielle called what has already happened to small businesses an “unmitigated disaster.” She stated that 1 in 7 small businesses are now gone with data suggesting that at least 2 percent of small businesses have disappeared, according to researchers at the University of Illinois, Harvard Business School, Harvard university and the University of Chicago. Restaurants haven’t fared any better – with 3 percent having gone out of business.

As a business owner myself, I can relate the difficulties many have gone through the past few months but I made up my mind a long time ago to push pedal to the metal and do whatever it takes to thrive with as few bumps and bruises as possible. I’ve never worked harder in my life than I have during this pandemic, but we’re starting to see some of those efforts pay off and it’s incredibly gratifying.

However, small businesses aren’t the only ones bearing the brunt of the current economic downturn. Renters are also facing nearly catastrophic results – with 42 percent of them facing eviction. Additional data shows that just under 12 million people are facing eviction in the next four months without a stimulus package.

With Congress adjourned until November 9^th, and without the possibility of a new stimulus package, renters and small businesses face an uncertain future. Danielle mentioned there are 7.9 million evictions ready to be filed and more families being at risk of being evicted than ever before.

In fact, Danielle sort of predicted this. During the conversation she said, “If there’s no stimulus spending before the election, you won’t be able to make it as a small business.”

The loss of income is also affecting white collar workers and it’s not just renters either. Homeowners are also feeling the pinch as layoffs have moved up the income ladder. By the end of the year, millions of U.S. households could owe $7 billion in unpaid rent, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The Mortgage Bankers Association also reported that 6 million renters and homeowners missed their September payments.

Danielle emphasized that we have a “societal crisis in the making,” emblematic on the discourse currently taking place in Washington, DC.

The news seems grim, but there’s a glimmer of hope for those looking to reinvent themselves and create new paths to success. The word “crisis” can create panic among many, but great leaders know that is yet another test and it requires keeping your cool and your wits. Crises also serve as the perfect place to find opportunities capable of opening doors we weren’t even aware we were seeking.

Danielle says that never have we seen this “magnitude of an explosion for small business applications” according to data from the Census Bureau. Business applications for Q3 of 2020 were over 1.5 million – an increase of 77.4 percent from the previous quarter. The current situation will create a plethora of opportunities for many to join the entrepreneurial ranks in higher numbers than ever before. To me, that’s American ingenuity as its core.

As if national politics wasn’t enough to frighten the toughest of us, we also have to keep an eye on the global ramifications. As the world’s largest super power, this election “is more important to the global economy than any other in modern history,” Danielle stated. The global debt has crossed 100 percent of the GDP, which surpassed levels not seen since World War II.

She added that it’s “incumbent on the U.S. not to fail the global economy because China is depending on us to fail.” She continued, “China is focused on the U.S. stumbling” and we’re at a critical stage globally. China is closing the economic gap with the U.S. and after the election, it’ll be a time to rebuild alliances. As China’s economic power increases, who will our allies be? Who will side with China and who will side with us?

The geopolitical ramifications are very interesting and closer to home we have plenty to rebuild, including the pharma industry. We need to recognize that as a National Security issue we need to rebuild that industry because if we don’t make it a number one priority, we haven’t learned our lesson.

It was a fascinating conversation with serious undertones and ramifications, but I always enjoy talking to Danielle. Her knowledge of the industry is unparalleled and she always teaches me new facts and figures that resonate with me as a business owner.

I want to thank her for her time and insights. Listen to the full interview here.

“The title winemaker connotes no gender.” – Cathy Corison, Winemaker, founding partner of Corison Winery.

With all the emphasis lately on gender roles and preferred pronouns, I had never thought about roles with gender-neutral names until Cathy Corison pointed it out during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion. I had the pleasure of hosting Cathy and we talked about the business of fine wine. She is an accomplished winemaker and, since 1987, has been producing some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley.

Even though her job title may not inherently have a gender attached to it, making wine is still a male-dominated field. When she graduated from college in the late 1970s with a master’s degree in Enology (the science of winemaking), she had no idea what she was up against.

“I grew up the eldest of four daughters, and I was always my father’s only son. So, growing up and then all the way through college, I didn’t know I was a second-class citizen,” Cathy said. “My major professor as I left the University of California-Davis with my master’s degree in winemaking sat me down, I think he meant well, but he sat me down to tell me I would never be able to work in the Napa Valley. There was something already inside of me, there’s this little voice on my shoulder, I didn’t say anything out loud, but it said, ‘watch me.’”

While women are making inroads into the wine business, it’s still male-dominated, even in forward-thinking California.

“Ten percent of full control winemakers in California are women,” Cathy said. “Napa Valley has done a little better than that. It’s 12% or 13%. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way as well.”

So, how did Cathy get interested in winemaking in the first place? It truly began as a whim and became a passion.

“It was a long time ago. I was 19 years old, a sophomore studying biology at Pomona (CA) College when, on a complete whim, I took a wine appreciation class,” Cathy said. “I think in today’s world, they would not have let me take that class as a 19-year-old. Wine grabbed me by the neck and ran with me. I loved it for all the usual reasons. It’s delicious, and you share it with friends and family. It makes food taste better and vice versa.”

Even with this love of wine, she didn’t intend to turn it into a business. Cathy was interested in the science and mystery of fine wine.

“But for me, it was a whole series of living systems that conspired to what is alchemy in the glass, which we don’t really understand it as well as we might want you to think we do. It’s magic.” Cathy said.

“To a certain extent, wine is alive on so many levels. It grows on a plant, and a living organism turns it from grape juice into wine. We age it in the wood of an oak tree, and we even but the bark of another oak tree in the bottle as a stopper.”

While most think of vineyards and wineries as businesses first, but Cathy looks at it from a different perspective.

“We are a small family farm. It doesn’t matter how you slice and dice it. We are a small family farm at the foundation,” Cathy said.

It looks a lot different from the family farms I’m used to in my home state of South Dakota, a farm is a farm. While a vineyard may not be thousands of acres, like Midwesterners are used to, they are just as vital to their region’s economy.

Family plays a huge role for all farmers, and Corison Winery is no exception. Over the last decades, the whole operation has become a family affair.

“My husband and I were married five years after I founded the business, and he stood too close to a very needy little business,” Cathy said. “There’s this audible sucking sound, and he was sucked right into it. That was 27 years ago. He has very different strengths. He’s a designer. He designed the winery. He’s the IT department. He keeps everything running.”

Because of COVID, even Cathy’s daughters now find themselves working in the family business. They were both in New York but returned to Napa Valley in March and are doing what they can around the farm.

“Quite frankly, when something happens to us, they’re going to have to worry about this place whether they like it or not,” Cathy said.

Besides changing family plans, the pandemic has Corison Wines tweaking its business model. With some distribution channels drying up, Corison found new opportunities.

“Mostly, we’ve taken advantage of the years of developing and a mailing list and a (wine) club that is very active. We’ve found that they’ve stepped up, and our sales are actually up,” Cathy said. “For 34 years, we’ve been taking care of people. We host people, and that tends to make people very loyal.”

You can only grow that loyalty through creating a brand a product people want, and Corison Wines have done just that.

I’d like to thank Cathy for the eye-opening conversation, and now we have something new to think about the next time we raise a glass.

If you’d like to listen to my full conversation with Cathy and an insightful Q&A with our executive community, click here.

Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. 

While many people credit that quote to former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, it traces back to Prussian field general Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” back in the 19^th century.  

That idea was a theme that ran through my recent interview with Bill Sanders, the Principal and Senior Consultant at Roebling Strauss, a consulting firm that helps companies once they’ve come together align processes and platforms. 

It wasn’t the only history lesson I got during our conversation, either. More on that down below.

Changing plans, pivoting, or whatever you want to call it, have become buzz words during the COVID-19 pandemic. While things are different at every company, they’re about to get really different everywhere soon. 

Analysts say we could be heading into a ‘golden age’ of mergers and acquisitions. In fact, most experts agree it’s likely to accelerate during COVID, including Bill. He says to look for an active fourth quarter. However, whether businesses will be scaling up and gobbling up their competitors while capital is cheap or whether it becomes a matter of survival, M&As aren’t anything new. Companies being acquired was a trend before the pandemic. 

 “Weak businesses are going to be snapped up because they need it. They need a lifeline,” Bill says. “In fact, I just talked to somebody a couple of weeks ago. They just paid $1 and took over a new business with 15 people in it just to keep those jobs alive.”

This is something the struck me, because here at the C-Suite Network we’ve been preaching, and practicing business continuity and helping others during this difficult economic time for many. It’s all about building bridges and making connections, which is something Bill takes to heart, literally!

Bill founded his company, Roebling Strauss, and decided to name it after two of the most iconic bridges in our country, John Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge designer, and Joseph Strauss, who designed the Golden Gate Bridge. Bill says he sees his work combing companies as building bridges between two places that weren’t connected before. 

“People would comment to me, ‘you’re really a bridge builder. You really like building relationships and bridging problems,'” Bill recalled. “I thought, ‘I’ve got a partial engineering background from electrical engineering and then finished in computer information systems, but maybe I better start reading up on bridges.’ I found a couple of heroes in the chief architects of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. They were both people who put people ahead of profits.” 

Then Bill gave me a quick bridge history lesson. 

“On the Roebling side, they were just beginning to find out what Caisson Disease is. They were driving the caissons down to the bedrock and bringing (workers) up too fast. They were basically getting the bends. Nobody knew what it was. (Roebling) flew doctors in from all over. He’d go up several times a day himself. He basically put himself in bed for the rest of his life. He was bedridden while he finished the bridge by giving instructions to his wife, who was basically the general contractor.”  

“On the Strauss side, he’s the first one to hang safety netting. There’s a great movie called Halfway to Hell about the 19 men that were saved on that bridge long before OSHA or anybody said you have to do this. (Strauss) said losing lives does not have to be the cost of doing business.”  

People like Roebling and Strauss have what we at the C-Suite Network like to call The Hero Factor, leaders who put people over profit.  

We continued the conversation talking about business and the trends we’re both seeing. You’ve probably heard me say during the pandemic. “Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become years.” All because change is happening so fast. COVID has been an accelerant for businesses everywhere. Bill has a similar take. He says we’re living in dog years. We’re getting about seven years of experience in just one year. 

“We have this kind of exponential convergence of all these technologies mashing together all the sociological change. What’s happening is businesses are starting to see the gaps between what they think they do and what their customers think they do,” Bill said. “Now they’re changing so fast if you don’t have a system to stay in touch with those customer wants and needs, then you may think you’re delivering, and it could have been exactly what they wanted three months ago.” 

How do companies know how to respond to customer needs during these unusual times? Bill says it’s never too late to pivot. If you do, have a plan to help your team members who are closest to the customers feed information to those in your organization so you can create change as quickly as possible. 

One type of change that seems to come quickly but never entirely goes as planned is a merger. As mentioned earlier, Bill is a master at bringing companies together after the sale. Usually, Bill gets called in because management has trouble getting ideas or strategic initiatives to work.  

“They call me because they know bringing someone in from the outside that has a dispassionate view overall can really ask the key questions and uncover those unspoken assumptions and challenge those mindsets that may have been a little calcified in the organization,” Bill said. 

He added, “It doesn’t matter what your strategy is. It doesn’t matter how much accountability you have in the execution of it. The minute you start engaging with a rapidly changing world, you have to have the systems that communicate, flex, and allow for adaptable execution.” 

Bill says execution and integration is something most companies don’t think about during the merger process. Companies will work out the terms of the deal but can’t figure out how they will work together.  

“The number one issue that I see is they don’t ask for enough post-merger,” Bill said. “All the creative thoughts get put upfront. All the numbers and legal stuff gets done before everybody can know about it. Then the corporate development team typically goes on to the next project, and they leave integration to the staff.” 

Since it’s often overlooked, integration can cause a lot of headaches. Bill says the most common mistake he sees in mergers is executives from both companies think just by throwing two similar businesses together, it will make a perfect union. Often it doesn’t, and innovation suffers because of it. 

“You just paid good money and put a big bet on a group of people who are obviously doing well enough you want to buy them. Why would you do everything you could to bring them in and help innovate? Not just what they’re doing, but what you’re doing as well,” Bill said. 

An interesting fact about Roebling Strauss is that they don’t advertise. Most of the firm’s business comes from word of mouth and referrals. While Bill says Roebling Strauss has a lot of repeat business, it’s never done the same thing twice. 

“One of my principles is I want to transfer knowledge. I get bored very easily,” Bill said. “You don’t ever want me operating anything, but I love putting it together.” 

Bill and I had an excellent conversation. We get into many of the strange things he’s come across during the merger process in the episode, which you can hear for yourself here.  

A brand is nothing but a promise delivered. I shared this in my first book, The Mirror Test and it remains true today. Recently, I had the opportunity to address this with the Global Chief Marketing Officer at PepsiCo Foodservice, Scott Finlow, during a recent C-Suite Network Digital Discussion interview.

Throughout the years, PepsiCo’s culture remains relevant and I love how they’ve kept that consistency, specifically how they have leveraged amazing brands and successfully kept them connected to their customers. But, here’s the question — is it a house of brands or a branded house?

Finlow has an impressive background in the industry, but he told me that what attracted him to PepsiCo was the “amazing portfolio of brands.” What’s more recognizable than the Pepsi logo worldwide? Not very many things. PepsiCo is an overarching brand — a group of $23 billion brands from around the world. While they may have a food or beverage business that operate separately in some aspects, in the customer’s eyes, they are one. “Bringing those brands together is a critical component of how the value of PepsiCo is demonstrated,” Scott said.

In fact, the brand is the number one supplier in North America – up from number three a few years back. “Part of it is the power of the brand, part of it is coming together,” Scott added. Under the PepsiCo umbrella — all people, data, services, have come together seamlessly, despite being run as a decentralized organization.

It’s the nature of the beast – centralize, then decentralize, as it will change in 6 months. What’s the secret of their success? The empowerment of the talented people tasked with running each sector.

“Nationally great and locally even better” – that’s their ongoing dynamic and it’s what makes them feel good about where they are, according to Scott. He added, “Finding that balance between building capabilities is an ongoing dynamic in a lot of businesses, including ours.”

With big powers, come big responsibilities.

PepsiCo’s sustainability efforts are also a source of pride for them. They have a set of goals they want to enact by 2025, but the efforts aren’t as simple as wanting to be more sustainable. He threw an impressive figure to prove his point – 75 percent of consumers think recycling is harder than doing their taxes. “Consumers expect us to be part of the solution and help out,” Scott said. He continued, “We believe strongly that you can do good and do well as a business.”

These directives don’t live in a vacuum – but they come down straight from the top. Their shareholders play an integral role in the company’s sustainability efforts. For them, it’s a simple equation, improve shareholder results by increasing sustainability; it’s not a trade-off. The proof is in the numbers and their stock prices. Scott says that “In the end, it’s all circular. If you think of plastic as a packaging component, you have to make sure we’re investing in that entire ecosystem.” Basically, sustainability is good for business. It drives stock prices up, gives the brand more notoriety in the sustainable ecosystem, and the customers reward you with their loyalty. It is truly a full circle.

Like every other business out there, PepsiCo has been touched by the effects of COVID. With foodservice representing 20 percent of their total business, a $5 billion business, Scott describes “foodservice” as “where you are when you are not at home,” which translates to stadiums, restaurants, schools, theaters, etc. It’s obvious that industry has taken a huge hit; however, Scott is proud of the way the company responded to help – not just their own employees, but the communities they serve.

The first thing they did was look after their own people in the frontlines – those in stores and those serving others. Scott says they’ve come closer as a result of these efforts. The next thing they did was pivot to meet their customers’ needs, especially around deliveries. They have partnered with the Great American Takeout and Drinks On Us, a part of the Global Citizen program. PepsiCo has also raised money, $24 million, by partnering with Guy Fieri and the National Restaurant Association.

This shift was not in the plans back in February, so like everyone else, they’ve shifted to put processes in place to help others. I firmly believe it’s our duty as “Business First Responders” to take care of our employees, customers, and clients.

Big companies have a responsibility to respond quickly, and help. Scott says their focus right now is the people, those that have been impacted by his national pandemic. I think it’s our responsibility as citizens of the world. “To build a brand you have to have a purpose.” Scott said, adding “It helps us build a better world.”

As a brand, PepsiCo has been fully ingrained in pop culture and being in tune with changing customer behaviors over the years. However, culture is more than what’s projected to consumers. Culture is very much an internal issue as well. “This is part of what makes PepsiCo a great place to work,” Scott exclaims.

During this interview, we even discussed advertising in the Super Bowl and whether it was worthy or not. Scott believes it is worthy because it’s a way to bring the brand to life in a huge way in the U.S. market. With Super Bowl ads generating $412 million in revenue last year, it’s more than revenue for the brand. It’s the culture that goes with it as well as the halo effect that goes with it. Scott says, “If we stopped doing it, it just would feel like we’re missing a part of our culture.”

I want to thank Scott Finlow for this time and his insights on the transformation they have put into effect, and their continued efforts to elevate the brand and maintain their status as one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Listen to the full interview on “All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett” here.

Do you think you’re creative?

Many think of a favorite book, movie, or maybe an impressive work of art, and say, “I could never do that.” While you may not be the next Vincent van Gogh, everyone is creative, according to Gabor George Burt. You just might not realize it.

Gabor is the Founder and Director of The Slingshot Group, an organization that helps businesses of all sizes use creativity to solve problems. He recently joined a C-Suite Network Digital Discussion, titled Unleashing Creativity, Innovation, and Patience as a Catalyst for Growth.

If you don’t think creativity is essential for c-suite leaders, early on during our conversation, Gabor cited a study asking thousands of CEOs worldwide what they consider is the single most important leadership quality. The overwhelming number one answer is creativity.

“The thing that you need to excel at most is understanding how to continuously reinvent reimagine refresh yourself,” Gabor said. “The same CEO is also said that they consider themselves to be very inadequate, ill-equipped in this regard.”

It’s not just CEOs having a hard time tapping into their creativity. Most adults struggle with it, as well. Now, amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve all tapped into our creative reserves in business and life.

“Everybody, every company and every person has the ability to remember and imagine what the new normal will be like,” Gabor said.  “What holds us back as adults is what Pablo Picasso said, ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist as we grow up.’ Because what happens is, we get educated out of our creativity. We, as adults, are channeled more into following structures. We kind of lose touch.”

He continued, “Creativity traditionally was seen as kind of a non-analytical and; therefore, non-objective part of culture, right? So, it seemed abstract. Even the term brainstorming implies that it (is) just throwing around ideas.” Gabor added, “What I do is provide the slingshot framework, a specific structure so you can systematically apply creativity.”

Regaining that touch with creativity and childhood inspired Gabor to start his company, The Slingshot Group. He named his company after the child’s toy to capture that child-like enthusiasm for the world around us. But what Gabor is selling isn’t child’s play. It’s a reminder that we all have creativity locked inside of us.

“I was thinking, what would be the perfect symbol and (came up with) the slingshot,” Gabor said. “It reminds us of this incredible resource at our disposal, which is our childhood creativity.”

He perfectly captures the curious spirit using a story from his childhood about watching a housefly.

“I was pushing some toy cars on a coffee table, and out of the corner of my eye, a fly caught my attention. Perhaps it was the first time I saw one so close. (I saw it) land on the edge of the coffee table, I reach out to touch it, and it disappeared,” Gabor recalled. “My reaction was to look under the coffee table to see where it had fallen, and of course, I didn’t see it there. This happened two or three times. The fourth time I didn’t look down. I looked up. I looked around and saw the fly on the wall. The point is that from one perspective, this instance is so trivial. It happened to all of us as children. But from another point of view, it was a complete and utter mindset shift. It was a new paradigm that I accepted. As children, we are receptive to that; in fact, that’s how our curiosity, our sense of adventure is limitless because that’s how we learned the world around us.”

However, it’s not all about child-like wonderment. There’s a bit of science here, too.

“I also love the mechanics of a slingshot, which is about pulling back and creating tension against a piece of elastic that then launches a projectile forward. That’s what I’m proposing is that we create tension and push against these self-imposed mental boundaries. By doing that, we release ourselves forward to new territories of opportunities on a corporate as well as an individual level.”

Gabor also said he choose a slingshot because it’s closely related to a sling, the weapon of choice in the Biblical story of David versus Goliath.

“(David) was up against what everybody thought was an unbeatable foe, an impossible situation and using his creativity, was able to put himself in control,” Gabor said.

Creativity can come in many forms. While we tend to think of it as something artistic, it’s not always that way. Creativity in business is sometimes spurred on by what’s happening in the world around us. We could soon see an entire group of new companies emerging out of the COVID-19 pandemic, just like we saw after the 2008 recession.

“If we traveled back in time to, let’s say 1989 or 1990 and asked someone ‘what do you think of the idea of mobile phones?’ they would have laughed at you. They would have thought that the concept to have your own phone number, rather than a phone number to your house, office, or car, didn’t make any sense,” Gabor said. “The same today, wearable technology, urban farming, or medical tourism. These are all terms that at first seem absurd. What we want to do is create a culture where we encourage embracing absurdity, pushing beyond boundaries.”

While that may be good for innovation, what about your company right now? How can you use creativity to move your business forward or save it? Gabor says to focus on the key pain point your customers, and target audience feels. Don’t just fix the problems. Turn them into a positive.

“That’s what I call a point of delight and infatuation. Infatuation, to me, is a special word because it’s the only one that expresses two things simultaneously — one is a powerful attraction and then a temporal one. Understanding that is the golden platform for ongoing innovation and growth because you understand that whatever you do for your customer, they will love it, they will be delighted. But, then very soon, that will become the new normal. That will be accepted, and the emotional connection starts to diminish. Now you need to refresh that emotional connection, and that’s what I call the infatuation interval,” Gabor said.

To illustrate what he means, Gabor used the example of Spirit Airlines. At this time last year, it announced a new configuration to their planes, making the middle seat one inch wider. While I won’t fly if I’m stuck in the middle seat, many people don’t mind. Gabor said the psychology of making it larger turns a pain point into something that might excite passengers. Sure, it’s only an inch, but it is wider, making it special for some passengers. He says this is something companies should keep in mind during the COVID-19 pandemic — ways to turn this situation into something that could infatuate and delight customers.

We can always use refreshers when trying to navigate uncertain times in business and life. I’d like to thank Gabor for his insights and if you’d like to hear our complete conversation, click here.

I recently interviewed Dr. Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist who works with everyone from Olympians to Fortune 100 CEOs. Dr. Gervais was a special guest during the C-Suite Network Digital Discussion titled, Power Thinking & Peak Performance: What Athletes, Musical Prodigies & CEOs Have in Common.

(Questions and answers edited for clarity)

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Let me ask this question. I can drink Scotch and get up in the morning. I can actually drink Scotch right before my podcast and probably do the podcast. I’m just joking about that. Nonetheless, I can still go perform. Isn’t it also about finding that talent that matches your skillset, or develop the skill set with the talent to do that you can really excel above other people?

Dr. Michael Gervais: There’s a tripwire here that we’re playing with, and that tripwire is how am I defining high performance and how am I defining success in life. If you happen to be 6’8″, 42″ vertical, big brain but you don’t like shooting the basketball. So, you’re built like Lebron James, but you don’t like it, at some point that’s going to become problematic. I think as a sense of fulfillment in life. I would suggest, based on my understanding of being around world-class world leaders. Is that the best of the best, there is a love for getting better in the thing that they’re trying to get better at. It’s an unlocking, and without unlocking we can become absorbed in the nuances of the craft, and that really is the path of mastery.

So, there are some nuances here to pay attention to. Do you just want to do what you’re good at, or do you want to have a sense of fulfillment and purpose in life?

If you can figure that out and sort that out and then layer on top of it, what you like getting better at there’s something really important. Now, that being said, if you want to be the number one best in the world. That’s an interesting framework because what I’ve noticed is that there’s two approaches: to be the best or to be your best. There is a cost and benefit analysis to do for both of them. And what I’m seeing right now across multiple sports and multiple domains of performance is that, again, the tip of the arrow or decoupling, what they do from who they are.

So many of us have swallowed this idea that I am what I do. Why else would your heart thump like it was a survival mechanism as you go on stage for a keynote? Why would that be? Because you have fused what you do with who you are, and the great fear in modern times is not the saber-tooth (tiger). It is what other people think of us.

We call that FOPO: fear of people’s opinions, as one of the great constructors for human potential.

I shared this mechanism with you because I think that we’ve got to sort out, how do you want to live your life? Do you want to be the best or your best and understand the costs and benefits of both? And if you can pull apart that doing from the being.

It’s a big deal now, and the best in the world are saying, “Okay, here’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to be more rather than do more. I’m trying to be more grounded, more authentic, more present, more creative, more expressive, more talented. Be more here.”

Now for other people, because no one does the extraordinary alone. Jeff, as you would recognize, it’s too complicated too big and then so from that state of being. They let the doing flow. From there, the output is tenfold.

Jeffrey Hayzlett: It sounds so much to being in mindfulness practice, or is it the same?   Is that part of this now?

Michael Gervais: Okay, so the short answer is yes. We’ve built a model that has five main pillars and I want to explain how mindfulness sits in there.

The first pillar is self-discovery. Get to know who you are. Investigate the darker areas of who you are and really understand what makes you work. What are you afraid of? What are your strengths and assets? What are your guiding principles?

I mean, that’s a really big question. What are the principles that will help guide your thoughts, your words, and your actions? And I’ll tell you what when people know that with great certainty. Nobody can take that away from you, that’s a very powerful place to be.

The second pillar is mental skills.

It’s a skill to know how to become confident. It’s a skill to know how to become calm and intense in the same moment. It’s a skill to know how to focus in the present moment.

Number three is psychological framework. We found that optimism is at the center of mental toughness.

So, optimism is the general belief that the future is going to work out. So, when you’re getting kicked in the stomach or punched in the mouth, metaphorically or in actuality, this fundamental belief that you know what it’s going to work. Let’s stay. Let’s keep going. Let’s grind. Let’s go. That is optimism.

But you know what? If left untrained, the brain will win, and the brain wants you to play it safe and small, and that is a psychological framework for Pessimism and cynicism.

And Jeff, I haven’t met a world leader in a discipline that is a pessimist. So, the opposite of that is optimism, and that’s a trainable skill.

The fourth is recovery, and the fifth is mindfulness.

The practice of mindfulness is the golden thread that runs through any psychological dynamic, progressive growth arc.

If you ask the best in the world. How important is the mental part of the game in any discipline, They nod and say, “yeah.” It’s a separator now. Mindfulness is the golden thread that runs through it.

If you’d like to hear the entire interview, listen here. Events like these is what make the C-Suite Network a trusted source to connect and collaborate with some of the best and brightest minds in business. Learn more about the C-Suite Network here.